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Speak up for Clean Lakes Next Tuesday, March 12

Vermont is blessed with stunning lakes, some 800 of them in fact. Many lucky Vermonters are lucky to live on these water bodies, but we all have a stake in keeping them healthy and clean. Lakes and ponds provide invaluable recreational, economic and inspirational value and the state can and should take further steps to keep them crisp, clean and healthy.A bill under consideration in the Legislature will do just that . . . but we need your help!

Next Tuesday, March 12, the legislature’s House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee is holding a critical public hearing on the so-called shorelands bill, H.223. The bill – the final form of which is still under discussion – would likely set up a regulatory program establishing a shoreline protection zone along the edges of lakes and ponds.

Please attend the hearing and offer your thoughts on the value of protecting and enhancing the quality of Vermont’s lakes and ponds next Tuesday, March 12, from 6-8 pm in room 11 at the State House in Montpelier. The nine-member committee wants to hear your comments on a first-come, first serve basis.

The Agency of Natural Resources, VNRC, the Federation of Vermont Lakes and Ponds, Lake Champlain International, the Lake Champlain Committee, the Conservation Law Foundation and Vermont lakeshore property owners are among those who have spoken in favor of this bill. But the committee needs to hear from even more Vermonters.

Here are a few points you could mention:

Vegetated shorelines:

Assure strong lakeside property values well into the future. (Who wants to buy or rent a lakeside house if you can’t swim in the lake?)